


your kisses burn (only love can hurt like this)

by babygrxxt



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Soulmates, childhood best friends, harry loves him so much, little lovebugs, louis is just really oblivious, sweethearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2850308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it’s winter-time again, and all harry can focus on is trying to get over the insane crush he has on his best friend.<br/>or<br/>they've been best friends almost longer than they have known how to walk, and harry's been in love for twenty seven years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your kisses burn (only love can hurt like this)

He saw him walking down the street at nine o’clock last Sunday when they were all cycling towards Tower Bridge, his hair whipping around his face in the wind and the contours of the body he had once known so well blurred through the fog. Niall pulled up beside him, ringing a bell he’d bought at the joke shop, and Barb was on the back, her long slender hands clasped around her boyfriend’s waist.

“It’s Louis, isn’t it,” she said, more of a statement than a question, her dark eyebrows furrowed in worry as she pressed her cheek against Niall’s back. Harry pursed his lips together, thinking that only a year before, when his jeans were somewhat looser and his hair a hell of a lot shorter, that boy had been the only damn thing in the world worth thinking about. He hadn’t been an afterthought, or a sorry topic only to be brought up when something painful came along and reminded Harry that he’d lost him.

They’d drifted apart, he supposed. People grew up all the time; it was a necessary part of life, after all, and he and Louis were no such exception to the cruel twists of time and fate. So he really had no choice than to force a dimpled smile, no matter how much his insides churned with the lie, and look into Barb’s knowing blue eyes as he mumbled what he’d been thinking on and off for the past twelve months in the confines of his bedroom late at night:

“It’s always been Louis.”

*

It started when Louis was six and Harry four, and they were both in Accident &Emergency on Christmas Eve.

It was a funny story really, one that bore repeating year after endless year on Louis’ various birthday dinners and then, as they got older, slurred over the fifth pint of beer and Cosmopolitan. And of course, like all great love stories, the first day was the day they knew they were going to be together for the rest of their lives.

It was just a different kind of ‘together’, that’s all.

Anne had gotten to that stage of parenting where she wasn’t quite sure whether she was overreacting the majority of the time or being perfectly just in her worries. Her six year old daughter, Gemma, was the reason for her abandoning her turkey dinner and husband Des and rushing towards the hospital near Cheshire as fast as her small Picanto could take her.

Gemma, in all of her sibling rage and vixen-like spirit, had been pushing Harry around on the landing when it happened. “I was just _joking,”_ she told her mother, rolling her eyes in a way that way far too sarcastic for a six year old. Anne already knew she’d have trouble on her hands. “It was his fault he fell. Stupid Harry.”

In fact, this remained her argument for the rest of her life as well; Harry became the catalyst for everything that went wrong in life as well as everything that went well. That was just how their relationship was, and it worked well so far.

Harry was still smiling as he held an ice pack a nurse passed over to him to the gradually purpling bruise on his head. “Did you see her steffoscop?” Harry asked his mother, tapping her on the knee with his free hand to get her attention away from the bustling passersby. “I wanna steffoscop.”

“If you’re a good strong boy, I’ll buy you one in Toys ‘R’ Us on the way home, okay?” Anne suggested, gaining an even bigger grin from her youngest child as he settled back into the seat, his little legs dangling over the edge of the metal.

“Can Gem get somefink too?” Harry asked innocently, his fingers slightly pink from holding the pack so tightly.

“And why would she get something, darling?” Anne questioned, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

“’S not fair me getting somefink and her not.”

That just summed up Harry in his entirety, to be honest, and Anne had to physically restrain herself from grabbing him into a hug and dotting kisses all over his small, cute face.

A few minutes passed in silence as Harry read a magazine over Gemma’s shoulder, commenting occasionally on the models and the dresses they wore, other times on the smallness of the writing and asking his sister to read it out to him. Gemma would respond by changing the words around so they made no real sense, not quite understanding herself, but Harry would be so rapt withal that he listened with the intent attention that he did with most things his sister uttered.

Louis was sitting in the Accident & Emergency room also, his arm wrapped in thick linings of gauze. He had been out playing with his sister in the little wood of trees at the end of his street when one of her dolls _mysteriously_ ended up at the top of a particularly tall tree. He had, of course, abandoned all safe forms of play in pursuit of the unattainable dream, and so had clambered up the branches, cutting his hands and his arm quite grievously in the process, before finally falling to the ground and breaking the bone that stretched from wrist to elbow into several cracked pieces.

He had gotten the doll though, and so that, for him, was enough to consider the entire endeavour a sweeping success.

Jay was holding his younger sister on both of her knees so he couldn’t quite get to his mother, and he couldn’t resort to his usual methods of walking past, arms flailing to get her attention either, for obvious reasons. He sighed and flopped back against the seat, whimpering slightly as the cool metal burnt through the thinness of his t-shirt. He wished momentarily that he had brought a coat out with him to play – he hadn’t had a chance to grab one as his mother sobbed and rushed him to hospital – but of course, this was one of the warmest summers in England in a couple decades, and so he hadn’t felt a need to. Now, as the light dipped down over the landscape of London, he was regretting his decision.

“Can I have money?” Louis asked distinctly. One thing Louis was no stranger to was talking, having been the brunt of his family’s awing and cooing for the past... well, as long as he had been alive, really. Therefore, he was further ahead in this skill than any of what he considered to be less important, such as reading or writing, something his teachers never failed to point out to him.

He’d spent more time in the naughty chair in his nursery school than he had out playing with the other children. When he got older, he would realise that this was merely a premonition of what was to be.

“Why do you want money, boo?” Jay asked patiently. She was pregnant with her third child then, and her life was a blur of crying and nappies and bills. Never-ending, ceaseless, unrelenting bills. She could barely afford to put food on the table, and she found herself yet again thanking the NHS for their dutiful service so that she didn’t have to pay to get her footless son’s arm fixed.

“To get food from that,” Louis said, pointing towards the vending machine with his good arm and undue enthusiasm. Jay smiled at him lightly and reached into her pocket, taking out a few fifty pence pieces and a couple of coppers.

“You should have enough there, honey, to get yourself _and_ your sister something,” Jay told him pointedly, pressing the coins into her son’s small, outstretched hands.

“Okey dokey,” he said, kissing his sister on the nose. He ran over towards the vending machine, being careful to cradle his hurt arm as he went.

At the same time as Louis had been begging his mother for money, Harry had been doing the same thing. The only difference was that Anne didn’t have to think twice before handing over five pound coins and telling her son to get whatever he wanted for himself, and another five for Gemma.

Harry ambled over towards the vending machine, slightly wobbly on his feet because of the heaviness of his raised arm, and waited patiently as the boy in front contemplated over the various confectionary items lying tantalisingly behind the glass. He watched as the boy shifted his weight from one foot to another, cocked an eyebrow, put his hand on his hip and then shuffled back towards his original position with a pout on his face.

“Why you sad?” Harry asked, moving towards the boy slightly nervously. When the other boy didn’t move away, he poked him in the cheek to get him to smile. It worked, just like it usually did with Anne. Harry grinned back.

“I don’t have enough,” Louis whimpered, slightly pathetically, the smile disappearing off his little face. He looked down at the coins in his hand. Harry stared at them for a second or two as well before it occurred to him that he had far more of those shiny things than the other boy did, and this boy had a bright smile and looked like he’d be fun to play with, so he gave him half.

Or, at least, he planned to give him half before he dropped them all onto the ground.

“Oops,” Harry said, dropping to the floor along with the other boy, who was already on his stomach reaching under the machine for the money before he even responded to it.

As they shoved their arms in underneath the large piece of machinery that would probably squish them if it fell, Harry decided that this was the optimum time to say, “I’m Harry.”

“Hi,” the boy responded, grinning as he reached around, grasping the coins with the tips of his fingers. “I’m Louis.”

“I like you Lou.”

“I like you too, Haz.”

“Let’s be frien and I can get ya a Twix.”

Louis considered this for a moment. “I’m giving you half, though,” he settled on.

“We need to eat them togeta,” Harry said solemnly. “I dun like them being alone.”

“They don’t have to be alone, anymore” (and that should’ve been deep, but they were four and six, for God’s sake. They had no idea what this friendship would mean).

They both pushed themselves off the floor, and immediately, without stopping to think, Louis brushed the dust off the front of Harry’s white polo shirt, causing the younger boy to look at him as if he quite literally hung the goddamn stars.

“I like you, Lou,” he repeated, the only words he could really think of.

Louis grinned widely, as if he’d been allowed to stay up to 9 o’clock on a Saturday night, or had been given unlimited access to the neighbourhood store’s pick n’ mix selection. “I like you too, Haz.”

*

It might’ve been the first of October, or perhaps it was just another Friday in September. Either way, whether it was nearly the end of the worst month of the year or the beginning of Halloween, Harry came to the same almost shattering conclusion that it was the best goddamn day of his life, and that there would never again be another hour in which he smiled as widely and with as much enthusiasm as he did then.

 Louis was eight and Harry was six, and they had been best friends for seven-hundred-and-thirty days (and counting). Louis had just gotten a cool new Power Rangers printed skateboard, which Jay hoped would help persuade him to stop running off in the mornings with a slightly reluctant but whipped Harry to play Hopscotch instead of listening to Mrs Tate go on and on about meaningless things like the ‘alphabet’ or ‘high school’.

“High school’s so far _away,”_ Louis said whilst Harry dragged a rock against the ground, creating white lines on the gravel. “It’s like - four years - four years! That’s like... all my life.”

Harry was very good at maths for only having learnt the basics of it a year and a half ago, but he didn’t bring up the fact that four was only half of eight, because it was Louis, and he wasn’t going to win anyways. Plus, it was _Louis._ That was reason enough in itself.

Louis had showed up at Harry’s front door with his brown hair whipped around and sticking to his forehead, clasping his gift under his arm. His tie was undone and hanging down against the whiteness of his shirt, and Harry fixed it as he walked down the path of his house in the best way that he could manage. Louis was being very awkward flailing his arms around in excitement.

“Lou, stop,” Harry protested, hitting Louis gently on the arm to get him to calm down. “I’m trying to fix your tie. Mrs Tate won’t be happy if you’re...”

“Mrs Tate can go eat poop,” Louis declared boldly, making Harry retract from him and gasp in horror.

“You can’t just _say_ that!” Harry said with wide eyes and mild admiration for his best friend, whilst Louis just grinned proudly and laughed.

“Come on, Harry,” he said, nudging him with his shoulder, nearly knocking him over. Louis had gotten so tall in the past two years – so much so that some of the kids at school asked him why he would rather play with a baby than with them (Louis’ response was always, “Harry’s six years old. Playing with an actual baby would be more fun than playing with you, anyway”). “Stop being such a...”

“Such a what?” Harry asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. Louis blinked a few times and then shook his head defiantly, making Harry pout.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It does matter,” Harry protested, although he didn’t really understand why it _would_ matter, just that it did.

“Just lighten up a bit, okay? You’re acting like my mum.”

“Your mum’s nice,” Harry mumbled, thinking back to a few days ago when Jay opened Louis’ bedroom door to two laughing boys with tears running down their faces and offered them brownies when their tickle fight ended. “She always smiles at me.”

“That’s because she likes you, Harry,” Louis said fondly, pinching Harry’s side in a way that had become custom for them over the past while. “Everybody likes you.”

“Not everyone,” Harry muttered, feeling his ears go pink for a reason unbeknownst to his young mind, but that he would later recognise as an overwhelmingly pathetic swell of affection towards his more-than-brother.

“Whatever,” Louis said, because they tended not to argue with each other if they could help it, not after the last time in which Louis listed all the amazing things about Harry – like that he was a good princess to rescue during his pirate games and he understood what teddies needed to sit down for the tea party with his sisters – and Harry just protested that Louis was the best thing since sliced bread for all of those reasons and more. “But look!”

He brandished the skateboard from under his arm and held it up against his face, which was now decorated with a wide, pleased smile. Harry wiggled his nose to warm it – the air had gotten surprisingly nippy now that he was out of the warmth of Jay’s home – and grinned back at Louis.

Harry wasn’t really fussed on skateboarding – to be honest it worried him more than anything, Louis kept breaking bones – but the blue eyed boy looked so absolutely _endearing_ that Harry couldn’t help but feel happy that he was walking with him right now.

“It’s got Power Rangers on it,” Harry said, motioning to the characters that were slightly skewed in proportions but cool nonetheless.

“I know!” Louis said, giggling slightly in delight whilst he did. “Wanna see how fast I can go?”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows. “Mum says I need to go straight to school and not allow you to ‘corrupt’ me. Whatever that means.”

Louis pulled a fake affronted face, even though he probably didn’t know the definition either. “I am not going to corrupt you!” he exclaimed. “But fine.”

They walked in silence for a few moments until Harry spoke up.

“You could go on it to _school_ ,” Harry suggested. “And I could run beside you.”

His friend looked at him for a moment, debating it for only a few seconds, and then nodded enthusiastically. “See, this is why you’re the best Harry,” he said, dropping the board down onto the uneven pavement and testing it out with the ball of his foot.

“As long as you promise to draw with me tonight,” Harry bartered, cheeks already pleasantly pink from the praise.

“I have homework to do, Haz,” Louis moaned. “But I’ll come over once it’s done.”

“Swear?” Harry said, holding out his pinkie finger. It was pink from the cold, but when Louis wrapped his own finger around Harry’s his skin was warm and comforting, like a hot water bottle, or a blanket on a cold winter’s night.

“Swear,” Louis said, smiling softly at his friend. “Are you ready?”

“Can you take my bag?” Harry asked, shrugging off his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack. Louis slung it over his other shoulder and tested out his balance on the board before nodding.

“Let’s go!” Louis called out.

As Harry began running, the skies gradually opened. His feet pounded against the tarmac and rain hit the side of his face, leaving it even colder than it had been before. Louis was only half a metre away from him, laughing and calling about how amazing this day was and how they had to hurry so they weren’t late for school, and Harry was laughing and breathless and soaked with rain and _Louis Louis Louis._

And that was the best day of Harry Styles’ life.

*

High school came quicker than they ever expected it would. Childhood flashed by in a series of play fights and laughing and Harry falling deeper and deeper into Louis than he thought was possible. Louis was a light, the ending of an everlasting tunnel that finally let out, and he was the sun and the moon and the stars, and the music that pounded during school discos and the way in which the floor vibrated as everybody jumped. He was the last day of primary school and the sound of the bell, and he was the one who held his hand and skipped with him all the way home screaming about being an adult now.

Louis never knew the meaning of the word adult, even when he became one, but he was still the kind of friend everyone needed in their life (he was also the kind of _everything_ that Harry needed in his life, from being the one person who could get him up in the morning to being the one who got his sister’s makeup to cover up Harry’s acne spots).

When Louis was fourteen and going up on stage to give a ‘lame ass’ Prize Day speech about being football captain and head of the drama committee, Harry was twelve and listening with reverence lacing his every thought as he admired the curve of Louis’ waist under the tight fit of his blazer, the way his shoulders jutted outwards in a triangle, and how his hips were just the right size for Harry’s now-growing hands.

If he hadn’t realised at that point (and he hadn’t, because he was oblivious and also completely stupid) that he was in love with Louis, everybody else had.

It had became something of a school joke to fondly make fun of Louis’ protectiveness of his younger, charismatic and adorable childhood best friend. Anybody who said a word of contempt towards Harry would face the brunt of Louis Tomlinson’s now creative and well versed rage, and that was something everybody enjoyed seeing and nobody enjoyed being the victim of.

Louis was somewhat amazing, and Harry was a small pond in love with a massive ocean, but the one thing Louis wasn’t particularly good at was public speaking.

Well, that wasn’t true. He could talk for years about things that mattered to him, much to the amusement of their newly formed friendship group, but when placed in front of an assembly of people who wouldn’t really appreciate his colourful vocabulary and faced with place cards that determined every word that would leave his mouth, Louis Tomlinson was rendered practically useless.

He was much more of an improv guy, to be honest, so Harry felt for him in a way that was totally not skewed by his obvious affections towards him.

Harry sat in the third row in front of both of their mothers, feeling slightly helpless and cringing each time that panic fleeted across Louis’ face. Finally, after much deliberation with himself, he agreed on throwing him a thumbs up and a signature Styles grin, hoping that would be enough to spur him on.

Strangely enough, even though Louis’ girlfriend’s Hannah’s pep talk had went barely noticed before the event, Harry’s cursory and not really well thought out sign of sympathy brought a small, cautious grin to the older boy’s face, and when he walked up onto that stage and shook the hand of the principal, his fingers didn’t shake and his smile remained evanescent.

And he was _beautiful_.

When he came down to a round of shattering applause and his ears were turning a delightful pink he didn’t return to the right side of the hall where his team-mates sat, much to the shock and slight offensiveness of one of the bulkier members of the football team, Mr Liam James Payne, the first of their friendship group to be recruited.

No, instead Louis went to the bother of crossing the entirety of the hall and squeezing past many un-amused parents, basically toppling onto their knees, whispering hushed apologies continuously until finally he reached the end of the row where Harry sat next to an empty seat. He dropped into it like a stone, and threw Harry a wild and bewildered smile that reeked of adrenalin and pure happiness, and Harry returned it, because he was in love with him and his successes felt like Harry’s successes and everything he felt Harry could feel as well, and they were so close that it wasn’t exactly _normal_ but yet felt so perfectly natural.

As everyone’s attentions gradually move back towards the front of the hall where a professional looking principal addressed the crowd, Harry’s fingers extend slowly, tentatively, towards the softness of Louis’ palm and ran themselves along the tanned skin that lay there. Louis’ fingers remained immobile for a moment, but the corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a hesitant barely-there smile, and then they curled upwards, entwining Harry’s own, so they were like ivy wrapped up in each other, branches caught on a vine.

They ended up holding hands there under the seats – something that was so innocent but felt at the time unexpected and somewhat illegal – in plain view of Anne and Jay, who just smiled at each other knowingly.

That was the closest Harry got to Louis for a long time after that (or, at least, a long time in a teenager’s mind, which was really only nine months). Sure they sat on each other’s lap during lectures and laughed into the crooks of their necks during movies in which their only real attentions were focused on each other, but it wasn’t secret like that gesture had been, wasn’t unprecedented and comforting and meant just for them.

Because, after all, being friends meant that they were no different to each other than Zayn (who Harry met whilst walking home from school one day in the pouring rain, a day in which Louis was sick and he was significantly miserable) or Niall (who Louis recruited at football practice and who had tagged along even since) or even Liam. They were no different, and the thing was that Harry _wanted_ to be.

He wanted to be unique. He wanted to be something other than just “the boy who hangs around with Louis a lot” or “the one who’s known Louis for years”. He wanted to be “the one who sleeps beside Louis” or “the one who made Louis tea in the mornings” or “the one who is able to fuck Louis at any available moment until the older boy was screaming his name”.

He blamed the hormones, but really, it was his love for Louis that was driving him so insane.

*

Harry was fourteen when he heard the familiar knock on his bedroom window – one two one two one – and rolled over on his bed, rubbing his eyes.

“4 o’clock on the fucking morning, Tomlinson, really?” he muttered to himself, because this wasn’t exactly the first time Louis had come clambering in through his bedroom window in the middle of the night, but it _was_ the first time it had been _morning_ and Harry had a massive exam the next day – and sure, so did Louis. It was GCSE year for him.

He shuffled across the window, his movements weighed down by the heaviness of sleep, but the moment he saw Louis through the glass his heart dropped like a stone.

The older boy was completely dressed in jeans and a stripy t-shirt – the one Harry bought him for his sixteenth birthday six months ago – and a pair of Vans. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder. He was sitting on top of the boiler house underneath Harry’s window, the gateway to his best friend’s bedroom, and he was shivering in the cold. It wasn’t raining though, so Harry had no choice other than to recognise the tracks down Louis’ face as tears.

“Louis,” Harry whispered, pulling his friend in through the opening, his arm strong around the thinness of Louis’. “What are you doing here?”

“You know the way my parents have been arguing?” Louis muttered, but his voice was surprisingly unemotional; almost mechanical. Harry led him over to the bed and, despite the fact that he was dressed in only boxers and freezing in the summer night, he wrapped Louis in the majority of the covers instead.

“Yeah?”

“He left,” Louis said, and this time he shuddered in his speech. Harry wrapped his arms around his friend, rubbing his hands up and down Louis’ skin to stop the incessant shivering, and allowed Louis to bury his face into the nook of his neck. “He left me he left me he left me he left me.”

“I know baby, I know,” Harry muttered, pressing a firm kiss to the top of Louis’ head. The older boy’s hair was soft and feathery, and it smelt like Jay’s shampoo and hairspray. Harry knew exactly what Louis needed right now, because he’d seen him just like this before. He needed him. “It’s okay.”

“He left me,” Louis whimpered once more. His lips were tickling against Harry’s skin, and his tears were dripping down onto his bare chest. “Why does everyone keep _leaving_ me, Harry? Why?”

Harry’s mouth was open and there were tears in his eyes, now, because Louis’ voice was cracking and he was shuddering underneath him and Harry couldn’t get him warm again. There were ribs poking through Louis’ t-shirt that hadn’t been so prominent before and Harry could see them through the fabric, could see them through everything he wore now and if he said it didn’t scare him he’d go to hell for lying.

“I don’t know, baby,” Harry mumbled, helpless. “I just don’t know.”

“I mean am I that fucking unlovable?” A sob caught in his chest, and Louis coughed then, spluttering and wheezing and crying with red eyes and bloody lips.

Harry didn’t mention, then, that he wasn’t sure where he wants to live later in life, or what he wants to work as, or how many kids he wants. He didn’t know what car he’d drive or even if he’d be a good father, but the one thing he’d always known was that Louis would be there, in some capacity, and that more recently it had been with a golden band around his finger and a Styles tagged onto his name. He didn’t say that, but perhaps he should have.

They wake up in each other’s arms, and Harry’s lips taste like the salt of Louis’ tears.

(He finds himself wondering, for what wasn’t the first time, if there was anybody else in the world other than Louis.)

*

“Harry Harry Harry are you home? Harry Harry Harry you better answer the goddamn phone I swear I need to tell you something _now._ Answer me answer me answer me.”

“Harry this isn’t funny now Harry seriously. I have something to tell you – something big – and you need to answer the phone now so I can tell you, okay?”

“By the way this is Louis. I’m telling you this BECAUSE IT WILL BE THE NAME OF YOUR MURDERER IF YOU DON’T PICK UP THE GODDAMN FUCKING PHONE STYLES.”

Harry’s finger hovered over the answer key on his house phone, but he couldn’t bring himself to press it.

Louis had been excited about things before, of course he had. He’d phoned Harry in fits of laughter barely a couple of nights ago lamenting the beauty of vodka and “those gorgeous fucking Russians” (Harry thinks he was taking advantage of being eighteen now and was drunk as fuck with Malik and Payne, but he didn’t say so on the phone). He’d called Harry with this level of enthusiasm every birthday the younger boy had celebrated since they first met, and every Christmas Eve, because those were the ones Louis loved the best. “Day we met, Curly,” he smiled fondly each time he said it. “And the day I was born. Not sure which is a better reason for it to be my favourite day, though?”

Harry swallowed thickly. Louis had been on a date with Hannah that day; Hannah with the blonde hair and the pretty eyes and the too soft, too girly lips. Hannah was the one who had been him smile so widely, the one who was making him phone his best friend in fits of glee and happiness. And Harry knew that should make him feel good, that Louis was so content, but the fact that it was _Hannah_... That just made him feel sick, if he was honest.

Anne was watching her son ignore all of Louis’ calls with concern lacing her features. She had been observing the way Harry chewed on the corner of his nail, bit his lips until they were stained red, pulled at the end of his t-shirt each time the phone rang.

“Are you not going to answer?” she asked, rather kindly, when the phone began to sing once more. Harry pursed his lips, not even glancing up at his mother, and shook his head. “Why not?”

“Don’t want to,” Harry muttered, although he _looked_ like he wanted to; seemed like he _needed_ to, to be able to breathe. Air was pooling in his chest, and he was gasping every now and again like he was underwater.

“Is there something the matter?” Anne questioned, setting down the newspaper she had been reading onto her lap. The cat had leaped up onto Harry’s knee now, but even it couldn’t knock the boy out of his stupor; he remained with his hand hovering over the answer button, his green eyes wide and glassy with tears. “Did you have a fight?”

“No,” Harry snapped, suddenly harsh. Then, he caught himself on. “Sorry, Mum.”

“It’s okay, Harry,” she replied immediately. “I didn’t think you would fight – don’t think you two have ever fought.”

Louis’ voice rang through the answering machine once more, this time filled with concern.

“Hey Harry? I know I was joking around about murdering you and all there now but I really hope you’re not actually dead and that’s why you’re not answering the phone. I also hope I haven’t pissed you off, but knowing me I’ve probably done something and you’re probably mad and I just want to say I’m sorry, okay? For whatever I’ve done. I don’t even care if I’d think it was nothing, if it hurt you, it was something, okay? Just call me back, please Harry. Don’t go outgrowing me or anything. Love you.”

“He doesn’t,” Harry mumbled softly. Anne considered him with squinted eyes.

“What do you me-”

“I’m going to phone him back on my mobile,” Harry replied, standing up quite suddenly from the armchair. Dusty let out a yelp, then a hiss, and scuttled away into the kitchen. Harry raised an eyebrow at the cat as if just realising it had been there the entire time. “If he asks... Our landline is fucked.”

‘Language, son,’ hung on the tip of Anne’s tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “Alright,” she replied instead. “Now go phone him. He’s probably worried sick about you, knowing Louis.”

Harry nodded absentmindedly and trundled up the stairs to his room, calling the contact near the top of the list (Louis had put his new number in as ‘Baby’ and Harry hadn’t gotten around to changing it) as he went. By the time Louis answered – after only two rings – Harry was leaning up against the wall of his room, staring at a framed collage on the top of his dresser.

Louis, at four years old, winking. Louis, at six, hugging a balloon animal. Louis, at eight, smiling at a butterfly. Louis, at ten, at the aquarium. Louis, at fourteen, doing homework. Louis, at sixteen, grinning away at the school formal. Louis, at eighteen, cheeks sunken in slightly but still grinning, holding a bottle of vodka in his left hand.

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis echoed through the phone. “ _You absolute fuck wit! I’ve been worried sick..._ ”

“How was your date with Hannah?” Harry cut him off, not in the mood to hear a traditional Louis telling off. He’d had enough of those in his life already.

_“Oh, that was actually what I was phoning to talk to you about!”_

Of course it was.

Harry sighed. “What happened?”

_“Well, let’s just say I can’t be given up as a virgin sacrifice anymore.”_

He knew him so well now he could picture Louis in his room, twirling the cord of his house phone around his finger, cheeky smirk on his perfect face, blue eyes sparkling. Harry was so used to hearing him say something witty and sarcastic that nothing but the tone registered with him for a few seconds; then, it hit him like a tonne of bricks.

His knuckles whitened around the phone. He wondered how resistant iPhones were to this kind of pressure.

“What?” he breathed harshly. A fat one legged woman was jumping up and down in her stilettos on his chest right now, and he couldn’t fucking breathe.

_“I lost my virginity, Harry, for God’s sake! That’s what I was phoning to tell you! Wanted to tell you first, though you WOULDN’T FUCKING ANSWER so I just texted Malik instead. Hope you don’t mind.”_

I wouldn’t mind if you never told me this, Harry thought to himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Louis didn’t seem to notice.

_“It didn’t feel like I thought it would. I mean it was good and all but it wasn’t mind-blowing oh my God I’ve had sex now and that was fantastic and I love you, you know that way? I don’t really think I do love her, but maybe I will after a few more times? Maybe it’ll feel better then?”_

“I don’t know, Louis,” Harry said flatly.

_“Well fuck Styles, I can feel your excitement for me leaking through the phone. Not.”_

“What do you want me to say?” **I’m in love with you.**

_“It’s not what I WANT you to say. It’s just I expected a different response, that’s all.”_

For a brief moment, Harry considered saying something snappy, like ‘why should my response matter’ or ‘if it was good enough you wouldn’t need my approval to say it was’. But he didn’t.

“Sorry, Lou, I’m just tired,” he lied fluently enough, if you took into account how bad a liar Harry Styles was. “Been helping Mum out all day with Christmas wrapping. But I’m happy for you – really, I am.”

Louis blabbered on for a few more moments about Hannah and how it didn’t feel like it should and what was the algebra homework. After realising he really wasn’t getting anything from Harry apart from one word answers, he hung up quite abruptly, saying that he’d see him tomorrow when he would need help with his maths. Because that’s all Harry was to him – someone to call when he needed tutoring, someone to call when he’d just fucking slept with someone.

That night, Harry barely ate any dinner, instead pushed the carrots around the plate with a sullen look on his face.

“So,” Anne said, trying to make conversation because her children weren’t going to. “What did Louis want to tell you?”

“He slept with Hannah,” Harry spat out, like it was venom resting in his mouth. Gemma raised an eyebrow at the sudden abruptness. Anne just sighed.

“Are you worried about that?” she asked. Harry looked up, eyebrows furrowed. “About you not sleeping with anyone? Because you’re only sixteen years old, there’s no shame in still being a virgin at this time...”

“That’s not it,” Harry said, shaking his head vehemently.

“Well Harry,” Gemma laughed. She had already finished her dinner, whilst Harry hadn’t taken a bite out of his. “It looks like you’ve got a stick up your ass about something.”

“Maybe it’s just that Louis is growing up,” Anne suggested. “And so are you. And it’s weird - I know that, because you met so young...”

“That’s. Not. It,” Harry repeated. His fork dropped down onto the plate, sending a load crash through the kitchen.

“Maybe Harry loves Hannah,” Gemma said, with a mock gasp. “That would be an awkward love triangle, wouldn’t it? Loves his best friend’s girlfr-”

“It wasn’t with me, okay?” Harry snapped, his voice loud and his eyes wide and bloodshot. “Does that satisfy you enough, Gemma?”

“It wasn’t with you?” Gemma repeated. “What the fuck does that m – wait.”

He was already gone by the time it registered.

And that was the only time Harry mentioned his crush to Louis out loud, even to himself.

*

“And then you move ‘x’ over to the other side...”

“Change side change sign?”

“Exactly.”

Louis let out a sigh and let his pencil drop to the table. “Why the fuck do I need to learn this again?”

“To pass algebra,” Harry said softly, smiling over at his friend, his hand resting against the textbook when he actually wanted it to be on Louis’ waist, holding against his skin –

“Well, screw algebra,” Louis snapped, not meanly, more exhausted in the way that most teenagers were this time of year. He frowned, a small line appearing in between his blue blue eyes.

Harry returned his attention to his own homework, chewing on the end of his pen as he worked. He had always been good at maths, and so had Louis up until high school. The difference was he was what his mother called a “traditional” learner. Louis preferred to learn whilst doing.

“Can you explain this to me one more time?” Louis asked, and when Harry nodded placidly he took his phone out of his pocket and pressed the ‘record’ button.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Louis shrugged.

“I only listen when you say it,” he explained casually, like it meant nothing. “Now, just go over that bit again, about the changing side...”

Harry wanted to kiss him so much it burnt, straight through his heart. His chest was a bushfire, being eaten alive, and Louis just smiled.

*

“Well this is an amazing sight,” Louis teased, as Harry settled a towel on his hips and ran a hand through his hair.

“Are you watching me get changed, you perv?” Harry asked, but he was laughing. This should’ve been weird, but he found pretty soon on that nothing with Louis made him go pink apart from the colour of his eyes and compliments. Compliments were a killer.

“Not my fault you conveniently placed your mirror so I can see right into the bathroom,” Louis quipped, his eyes sparkling. Harry looked up then, and right enough, his half naked body was perfectly framed from the bedroom mirror.

“You could’ve not looked,” he said slowly, his voice deeper than it ever had before now that he was twenty and shaggy haired. He walked out of the bathroom towards his friend, who was still only half dressed. They should’ve been ready half an hour ago; the dance began in twenty minutes.

“And miss this fine specimen?” Louis asked, digging his fingers into Harry’s laurel tattoos. Harry recoiled from his tickling touch, but before long he was pressing into Louis’ hand so that he could feel the heat emanating from the older boy. “Why would I ever do that?”

“Are you going to ask her tonight, then?” Harry questioned, dabbing cologne onto his neck with the backs of his wrists. He’d gotten significantly better at talking about girls with Louis – girls that he would ultimately kiss, girls he might even come to love – ever since he began dating other people himself (not that that changed a damn thing; his heart still bruised every day with loving Louis).

“Hopefully, yeah,” Louis said, wringing his hands together. He was nervous, Harry could tell, but he still looked amazing in the suit Harry had got him in House of Fraser. “How do I look?”

“Taking my breath away, Lou,” Harry said, and Louis hit him playfully, although he wasn’t joking.

“What the fuck am I going to say to her?” Louis asked. He was frowning now, and he looked so sad Harry wanted to take him into his arms and press a kiss to his forehead, but he didn’t.

“You can practice with me,” Harry suggested lightly, and when Louis stared at him he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “Come on, be a man.”

“Okay,” Louis conceded, and for some reason he looked _more_ skittish. He stood up from the seat and moved closer to Harry, who abruptly pulled him forward until their torsos were touching.

“Are you going to stand that far away from Eleanor?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly. “Not sure she’ll want to screw you then, to be fair.”

“Shut up, you big oaf,” Louis said, punching him in the arm. “Right – will I just pretend to –”

Harry placed his finger on Louis’ lips, shutting him up. Louis glanced upwards at him, his eyes sparkling, and maybe he was saying words he couldn’t bear to let escape his lips – Harry couldn’t tell, he was too busy watching his movements -

Carefully, slowly, Louis lifted his hand up and rested it against where Harry’s jaw-line met his neck. His thumb drifted softly over the skin there, so miniscule in its movements that if Harry hadn’t been so completely endeared by him it would’ve gone unnoticed.

Harry opened his mouth – partly to ask if this was actually happening and another to ask if maybe Louis could feel the same – and Louis went to answer. Eventually, with only light breaths mingling from both boys, they closed their lips tightly again, and Louis backed away.

“That’s what I’d do, then,” Louis said, his voice thick with something, like he was crying, or had a cold, perhaps. “To Eleanor. When I ask her.”

Harry wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but he felt a sudden urge to cry. He sniffled and hoped that Louis wouldn’t notice the tears bubbling in the corners of his irises.

“She won’t be able to resist you,” he said, trying desperately to smirk, but the dimples just wouldn’t arrive.

“Yeah,” Louis said absentmindedly, turning his attention back to his tie after one last glance down Harry’s still wet body. “Thanks.”

He swallowed thickly. “No problem, mate,” he replied.

*

“All I ever think about – without even realising it, mind you – is I wonder what Harry’s doing or I wonder what he’s thinking – is he thinking of me?  -and knowing that you’re not, that you might be thinking of someone else, it fills me with this sense of urgency, like I want nothing more than just to kiss you until you forget there are other people on this planet, people better than me, that also love you. I think what’s so special about me, that I have a best friend like him? And then I remember all we’ve done together, how I brought you on my family holiday to New York and you caught the baseball – “

“It hit me in the face...”

“Regardless. And then you went as my date to my mother’s wedding when Eleanor bailed on me, even though you knew at that point what I was too blind to see, and it was right in front of me all along.”

“Lou...”

“You did my hair every morning in the school bathrooms. You wrote me a poem on my birthday the past five years. You made me a fucking photo album of chronologically ordered photographs of the times we’ve had and the fun we remember and the animals that have chased me. You have a picture of you and me on your bedside table – our bedside table. You have helped me with my maths homework every year since I can remember. You were there when my dad left, when my grandfather died, when my step-dad left; you were there through everything, Harry. You were the only one who didn’t leave.”

“That’s what friends do, Lou.”

“No, but don’t you see? I want to be more than friends. Don’t you think it’s weird that for every night I’ve stayed up imagining the taste of your lips against mine, we’ve never actually kissed so I have something to miss?”

And then he woke up.

*

Harry noticed everything about Louis; the way he pushed himself up onto the kitchen counter with a red plastic cup in his hand, his trousers pulling against his ass, his face pink from running down the halls and his eyes sparkling. And boy, he was kidding himself if he thought they were only friends.

They had their own apartment now, and it was that place in which a house party was occurring almost every weekend now, courtesy of Louis. It had happened when Harry brought up the fact that Louis promised to move in with him when he turned sixteen over a breakfast of pancakes and orange juice in the Tomlinson family home. “Now I’m twenty one,” he had laughed, “and I’m still living with my damn mother!”

Louis had sighed in the same way as Anne had when twelve year old Harry asked if he could go out clubbing with his sister, and began to say, “That was just a silly dream, Harry” when Harry broke in.

“But I’d make you breakfast,” he protested. “Every morning. And I’d sing to you whenever you wanted, and let you watch all the musicals on the TV and I’ll keep the bathroom clean and do your laundry and wash the dishes. I’ll cook for you and I’ll teach you how to play the guitar and _everything._ Just me and you, Lou, twenty four seven. No one else. How amazing would that be?”

“Why did you have to go say that?” Louis groaned, but he was hugging Harry by then so the younger boy knew he had won.

“I love you a whole lot, Lou,” Harry mumbled.

“Love you too, Harry,” Louis responded, but it was strained for a reason Harry couldn’t quite understand. Maybe Louis was just exerted from the ferocity in which he was hugging his best friend.

They were different people, Louis and Harry. Louis was a night owl, Harry was a morning person. Louis loved toast, Harry made pancakes. Louis spent time out on jogs around the neighbourhood and crashing parties whilst Harry was in their living room, stretched out on a yoga mat and lighting incense.

They were different people, and maybe that’s why it worked, why they became known as the “Best Couple” in high school and after it even if they’d never properly kissed. The night of the fiftieth house party they had thrown, when people were passing out and puking all over the place, was the night that would change.

Louis was drunk, and he was pulling Harry around the flat with him by his collar. Louis was downright _handsy w_ hen he was like this, and fuck, Harry loved it. Louis leaned in on him, the counter making it so that he was just slightly above Harry height-wise, and began to slur pathetically in his ear.

“Tell me a secret, Harry,” Louis said huskily. “Tell me a secret.”

“A secret?” Harry repeated, cocking his head to the side and considering his friend. Louis was laughing now, although Harry had done nothing humorous in the least.

“A secret,” Louis repeated, louder this time. “Mister Harry Styles has gotta have a secret.”

And then, Harry decides ‘fuck it’, and he leans in close, his lips tickling Louis’ neck, causing him to squirm underneath him. He’s gone suspiciously silent all of a sudden.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since the day my voice broke.”

Louis’ eyes widened, but only slightly, as if he had been expecting this response, but perhaps not as blunt. “That the truth?” he muttered back, still slurring slightly, still drunk enough to hopefully forget this, but Harry was in too deep to stop now.

“The most truthful thing I’ve said to you for years,” Harry responded. The kitchen was dark and there was too many people there for it to be intimate (Harry could feel at least five of his barely friends leaning against his back) but when Louis looked at him, they were the only two people in the world.

“Wanna play seven minutes in heaven?” Louis said, smirking, and Harry nodded dumbly. He followed his boy as he hopped off the counter and moved towards their shared bedroom (even though the apartment had two rooms they decided to share; it was warmer at night when they were pressed up against each other). Louis padded over to the walk in wardrobe, stumbling slightly.

Cautiously, Harry closed the door of the closet behind them, laughing as Louis pushed the clothes out of his face and stuck his tongue out at them. He was in the midst of giggles when Louis’ lips smashed against his, and their teeth clanged painfully together, but Louis had just _kissed_ him.

Fuck it Louis was kissing him he was kissing him and Harry wasn’t doing anything just standing there and he couldn’t believe this was happening.

When they broke apart, Louis looked terrified, and his hands were shaking – though that might’ve been the alcohol.

“Sorry,” he began. “You just looked so...”

He was cut off when Harry cupped his face in cold hands, the now empty plastic cup falling to the ground as Louis leaned into him, their lips touching, slowly at first.

Then, Louis’ tongue was in his mouth, and fuck he tasted like vodka and cigarettes and blind, all encompassing love, and he was a catalyst; an unending series of storms and catastrophic explosions and Harry loved him, he loved this, wished they could just keep doing _this_ forever, for the rest of their days...

Law school didn’t seem all that important anymore, nor did that dissertation due the next day, not when Louis’ hands were moving down his body and resting on the front of his trousers, trying to tug the zipper down. Harry wanted to mirror him, he really did, but Louis’ skin felt soft on his hands and his breath felt sweet against his lips and God, was this even happening, was this even –

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, slightly harshly, because his lips were bloodied red and his teeth were aching from the clash and Louis wasn’t kissing him, he should really be kissing him instead of looking at him like that –

\- Louis was lowering down, lifting up the hem of Harry’s t-shirt and licking down the hair that led from his bellybutton to –

*

The next day over coffee and hangovers, Louis asked Harry what happened last night.

“We just played truth or dare,” Harry said smoothly, “Nothing of significance.” (He really hoped Louis wouldn’t notice the cum stained boxers in the laundry basket, but he never went in there anyways, so he was probably safe.)

Louis scrunched his eyebrows together in a way that made Harry want to kiss him all over again,  and mumbled, barely coherently, “I’m not stupid, Harry.”

They don’t speak of it again.

*

“Do you remember that time when we were ten?” Louis asked. His phone was sitting, flashing, on his thigh, but he didn’t look down. Harry knew without any elaboration which occasion he was talking about.

When Harry was ten and Louis twelve, they were playing in Harry’s back garden in his brand-new tree-house.

Harry wasn’t really the type of person to get excited. He felt happiness and sadness at the same intensity as other people, perhaps even more, but he just didn’t jump up and down at anything. But this tree-house that his father had bought him for Christmas and crudely built in his mother’s garden was, in his ten year old mind, the Grand-daddy of all tree-houses. It was a castle, a pirate’s ship, a – you get the point. It was anything he wanted it to be, and that was the beauty of it.

He spent the majority of that year playing with his cousins because Louis had moved further away and could only get to his house in his mother’s car, and Jay couldn’t really afford petrol, so they spoke on the phone every night instead, a weird thing for ten year olds to do. But none of his cousins – not one of the eight of them – measured up to Louis in his eyes. They just didn’t understand the amazing opportunity that they had been presented with, they didn’t get that this tree-house was the very embodiment of everything Harry had been imagining since as long as he could remember. And that’s why, when Louis came around and immediately demanded to see this amazing fortress, he was so very giddy.

They played pirates with sticks as swords. Louis was Peter Pan and Harry was Wendy. They got pieces of newspaper and stuck them to the walls of the structure with Blue-Tac and pretended they were artists working on their easels. They re-enacted the Titanic – which they had never really seen but heard about – and they clambered up onto the roof and pretended they could touch the stars. They played all goddamn day in that tree-house (the tree-house that only lasted a year before it was blown down by a particularly gusty wind storm, thankfully while they weren’t in it) until their knees were cut from the splintered wood and their fingernails were dirty from scraping at the bark of the tree that ran up through the house.

‘It was all fun and games until someone got hurt.’ Wasn’t that the saying? Harry had never paid much attention to it before, because it hadn’t bore any relevance until it affected him. He was running across the wooden floor – his feet pounding heavily against the shaking structure – struggling to hide whilst Louis counted.

“You’re not allowed to look!” he gasped, and Louis covered his eyes properly with his hands, but Harry could tell he was still watching him. He seemed to always be watching him, but he never thought it was weird. It was just the way they were, _HarryandLouis_ , the way they had always been. “Close your eyes, L-“

A brisk, high pitched scream followed the laughter, plunging the once infinite boy through the floor he had been running over just moments ago, so that he was hanging on by a frayed and slipping wooden board. The ground swayed below him – or perhaps that was his body – and it looked so far away, metres away, much higher than it really was, but Harry knew it was high enough to hurt himself if he fell, his mother had warned him about it countless times. Had he listened to her? Of course not.

That was the first time Harry remembered being so terrified he forgot how to breathe. A thick, sick lump worked its way into his throat and stayed there, threatening to choke him. His fingers were already red and hurting from the playing, and he wasn’t even strong enough to hold himself up on the monkey bars in the play-park, and he was slipping, slipping, slipping...

Louis’ hand caught him - strong and sure and bruised and covered in dirt and safe – and pulled him up into his chest. They rolled away from the gaping hole, clutching onto each other in a way they hadn’t before, in a way that Harry hadn’t even seen his parents touch when they used to be in love, back then, when he was three.

He could feel his own heart pounding in his throat, reminding him that he was here and he was alive and breathing, he wasn’t lying broken at the bottom of the tree that he had come to love so much. And Louis, he was breathing heavily too, his chest heaving with every inhale, his face basically grey.

“You’re pale,” Harry mentioned, touching Louis’ face. It was smooth, and he remembered thinking then, for the first time, that Louis was quite something. (Maybe that was just the lifesaver thing, though.) Louis laughed, but it was manic, not like his normal giggle at all.

“Obviously, Harry,” he mumbled incoherently. “You scared me.”

And Harry believed him because, looking back, Louis had been more afraid than Harry had. After that day, Louis never really wanted to go back up into the tree-house, even when it was fixed up by Harry’s uncle Brian.

“I’m not one for heights, to be honest,” he had said as his excuse, and he kept up with that for years afterwards, always using his fear to hold on more tightly to the fabric of Harry’s shirt when they were up in high places, like elevators, bridges. Anywhere, really.

“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling slightly, as if the memory didn’t make him want to cry for a reason he couldn’t quite understand. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I literally couldn’t breathe for about ten hours afterwards,” Louis said breathily, like he had spoken so many years ago. “I was so damn scared. I thought you were dead, even when I saved you, you know? My heart was pounding in my chest, I felt like crying of relief or pain or something, I’m not sure what, my fingers were numb and I couldn’t think of anything but you, you, _you_.”

Harry kept looking at Louis, who now wouldn’t meet his eyes. He was shuffling on the seat, as if there was something he so desperately wanted to say but couldn’t quite find the words.

“Well, that’s how I feel about you all the time, now,” Louis said simply. “Just so you know.”

Everything collapsed inside of him, and instead of kissing him, he ran.

*

The Monday after that Sunday morning on the bridge, Harry was sitting down in a Chinese restaurant with Barb and Niall, trying not to feel like a third wheel, trying not to look desperately depressed, and failing utterly at both.

“Do you think he saw me?” Harry asked abruptly over a plate of uneaten chicken curry. Barb raised her head, and Niall glanced at her with worry reflected in his eyes before answering.

“No,” the Irish boy said cautiously. “No, I don’t think he did.”

“Good,” Harry let out a sharp exhale. “Did he look okay? Do you think he’s been eating?”

“He looked amazing, Harry,” Niall sighed, still looking over at Barb with eyes that screamed ‘help me’. “Same as he always has.”

“He wasn’t eating for a while,” Harry muttered, sticking a fork into his chicken. “He doesn’t eat when he’s stressed.”

“Neither do you,” Barb replied. She set her hand carefully on Harry’s upper arm, her blue eyes wide in sympathy. “Harry, you’ve been like this for months. Don’t act like seeing him again brought it all back – we’ve been worried about you for a while now.”

“I left him,” Harry mumbled, a lump forming in his throat. It threatened to choke him, and maybe that wouldn’t be all that bad. “I left him two years ago. Why did I leave him, Barb? Why?”

He didn’t need Barbara Palvin to answer that question; he knew it himself. After Louis’ admission – which wasn’t even that fucking deep, when he thought about it, definitely not deep enough to make him freak out and _run away_ for God’s sake – he’d started distancing himself from the boy, not hard to do when most of his time was taken up by uni and preparing to be a lawyer anyways. Louis had called him and texted him and even emailed him, begging for them to be able to forget what was said and he knew it was stupid but he thought he remembered a night that he was drunk when he blew Harry in their closet and he wondered if it had been a dream.

Harry had ignored every one of his calls, and eventually, they stopped.

The friendship group that had been their foundations during high school also collapsed with the falling out of their two most prominent members; Liam and Zayn tended to side with Louis in most instances, and this time they did so as well, though Zayn had tried desperately to get Harry to apologise. Niall and Barb stuck with Harry, and that was okay for a while, for Niall was good to get drunk with and he brought him to Ireland for a while to help get away from everything (Louis) and Barb talked fashion with him all he wanted, but now...

Now that it had been so long, the aching hole in his heart that should’ve been filled with a blue eyed fuckwit was empty, cutting right through him, scarring him to the bone.

It was the biggest regret of his life, leaving Louis, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it back, not now. It had been too long. Louis was probably in love with someone else now; hell, Harry would be surprised if he even remembered Harry. (Obviously he would recall the pirate ships and the algebra classes and their first kiss, but the slow dancing and the holding each other whilst they slept and the look in Harry’s eyes when he looked at the other boy would be but a distant memory.) And maybe that was best, for both of them.

But if it was, then why didn’t it feel like that? Why did it tear Harry apart to think that Louis was in the same city – hell, had been on the same damn _street_ – and they weren’t here together, knees touching under the bar table, half a pint of alcohol already down the backs of their throats because it stung almost as much as when they weren’t kissing?

“You know,” Niall began, when Harry had been significantly quiet for a couple of minutes, “Louis texted me the other day.”

“Oh,” Harry muttered, but of course he already knew this – Louis texted Niall frequently.

“Yeah,” Niall said. He was rubbing at the back of his neck. “He was asking about you. Said he heard you graduated.”

“Oh.”

“He wanted to come to your graduation, Harry,” Barb broke in. “But you never invited him, he told me. Why didn’t you invite him?”

“Because shit went down, Barb,” Harry snapped. “And you can’t just extend the olive branch of friendship if every time you fucking look at him you think you’re going to be sick.”

“That bad, huh?” Niall asked, staring into the bottom of the glass. He looked so forlorn at Harry’s outburst, whilst Barb just appeared shocked.

“What did he do?” she questioned desperately. She was gripping onto his shirt now, pleading. Harry pursed his lips together. “You’ve been crying over this and complaining over this and making my life a fucking hell Harry but you still haven’t told me what he did. Maybe if you told us,” she inhaled sharply, “we’d be able to understand a bit more.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he protested.

“Try us,” Barb challenged.

“I’d prefer not to,” Harry replied.

“Harry...” Niall said warningly. Harry shook his head.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Barb declared, throwing her arms up into the air in frustration. “If you’re not going to tell us, we might as well –”

“He told me he loved me, okay?!”

Both Niall and Barb’s hands dropped to their laps, their mouths hanging slightly open. Harry immediately backtracked.

“Well, not exactly in those words but...”

“You know Louis better than anyone,” Niall pointed out. “If it sounded like ‘I love you’ to you, then that’s what it was. But I dunno, mate. I don’t see why that would’ve been a problem.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?” he asked. Niall shrugged.

“Dunno,” he mumbled. “Just thought you were always kind of in love with him too. Guess I was wrong, though.”

 _You weren’t, Niall,_ Harry thought to himself. _Not even close._

*

The next time they meet Harry was twenty five, and Louis was twenty seven, and it was Gemma Styles’ wedding day.

She had been beautiful up there, her eyes shining with love for the man she was marrying, and as Harry twirled a ring Louis had bought him for his eighteenth he began thinking that maybe – just maybe – it should’ve been him up there. Maybe – just maybe – he shouldn’t have spent the past four years trying to crawl his way up the social ladder, arguing cases he barely cared about in a stuffy courtroom. But, alas, this was his life now, and he had all the money in the world, a nice car parked in the drive, and a designer apartment in London.

They all paled in comparison to the look on Gemma’s face.

Harry had been her wedding planner; he had always been a bit of a perfectionist, and it acted as his present to her anyways, setting the entire thing up and paying for it. Hundreds of people that day – or, at least, that’s how it seemed – had came up to him and congratulated him on the colour scheme, the seating arrangements, the flower patterns. He was beginning to think that maybe this could be a full time career choice if he let it.

He was standing in the middle of the empty hotel dining room, looking around at the remnants of dinner the guests had left in their scurry to go dancing. Everybody was partying in the adjoining room now; he knew because he could hear the _thump thump thump_ of the music he had picked out especially for his sister echoing through the walls. It sounded pained, trapped, confined – it sounded how Harry’s head did most of the time now. And God, did he want to go back to putting pillows at the bottom of the stairs and sliding down on a piece of cardboard with his best friend.

The best friend who was on the other side of the room at that moment, his face highlighted in the soft glow of white candles. Harry’s breath hitched in his chest.

He looked amazing, Louis, but then he could show up green and covered in boils and Harry would still want to kiss him all over. Adorning the expensive wedding suit was a beautiful white flower, the same as the rest of the groomsmen, and Harry internally cursed himself for letting this happen; he’d been able to keep his eyes off Louis the entire ceremony, but now he was mere metres away from him and the curve of the suit hugged against his skin and his face was decorated with stubble and beauty and Harry loved him, still.

Fuck all of this, really.

“You came,” Harry said finally, because Louis was just _looking_ at him, and God, did he not know what those baby blues did to Harry?

Pursed lips. Slicked back hair. Fancy Italian leather shoes. He was an English and Drama teacher up at the high school now, last Harry had heard; he’d be good at that, he thought. Good at teaching. Good with words.

“Nice wedding,” Louis mumbled, running his fingers delicately along the lace tablecloths. Harry let out the breath he had been holding.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” he said, trying not to show the swell of pride he felt at Louis’ compliment (Louis always did this to him; compliments were his kryptonite). “Worked for a long time on it, almost...”

“Four years?” Louis broke in, the placid look off his face now. He was illuminated in the darkness, just enough that Harry could see the pinpricks of tears he was so desperately trying to hide. “Because if that was the reason why you left me – you were so busy with this wedding – that’s really the only one I could accept.”

“Louis...”

“God, just shut up, Harry,” Louis snapped, slamming his hands down on the table. A couple plates fell to the ground, and Harry considered his friend with wide eyes. It was usually Harry who was like this; Louis was the calm one, the one who told him everything would be okay, the one who kept his voice low... “You’ve had more than enough time to talk. Not that you have, of course.”

“I can –”

“You can what, exactly?” Louis asked. Harry really wished he wouldn’t look at him like that; it was almost hatred reflected in his blue irises. “Explain? You _left_ me, Harry. After all we fucking promised each other! After everything! After all that ‘never gonna leave baby’ bullshit in the middle of the night. That day my step-dad left... Were you just saying whatever it took to get me into bed or something? Or did you feel guilty? Did you promise things just because?”

Harry couldn’t speak. His throat had closed over with the threat of tears, but Louis wasn’t finished yet.

“You _promised,”_ Louis said, with a slight whimper. “You fucking promised, Harry! And you let me trust you, knowing you were going to do this... You let me fucking blow you in the middle of our fucking party when I was so fucking in _love_ with you that you should’ve known better than to let me do it if you weren’t going to fall in love with me too!”

“Louis...”

“And another thing! You’ll tell Gemma you had a crush on me before _me?_ You’ll tell Barb and Niall before _me? ME,_ your best friend since we could fucking talk, Harry? We used to tell each other everything! We used to share secrets like they were fucking going out of season. I used to trust you with everything, Harry, and now I look at you and it’s like...”

“Louis, please...”

“It’s like I don’t even know you,” Louis said. His shoulders, which had been tense before, loosened up and moved down. “And that’s a really shit feeling, Harry. Not to know the one you love.”

“I didn’t know” – Harry inhaled sharply – “I didn’t know you were gay.”

“Neither did I,” Louis admitted. “But after you left I started thinking about things, and I went to a gay bar and met this guy and...” He shook his head. “Let’s just say I’m gay as hell and leave it at that, okay?”

“But...”

“Yes, I know I didn’t figure it out from birth like you did,” Louis snapped, back to the defensive. He moved so fluidly now – he must really hate him, and that hurt more than a gunshot ever could. “Mister Harry Styles has _always_ been the dog’s bollocks, haven’t you? Always perfect, always politically correct, always knows who he was...”

“Louis...”

“I just figured it out there now, Harry,” Louis yelled. “So excuse the fuck out of me for...”

And then Harry couldn’t take it anymore and he was kissing Louis, who protested for only a moment but then leaned into him. They were taller now, both of them, and Harry had to stoop slightly to reach his mouth and that’s with Louis on his tiptoes, but it worked, goddamnit it worked.

Louis was slightly squishier now and God, that felt good because it meant he was finally eating right and was healthy and happy and Harry was actually really pleased if someone else was watching over him, making him feel like this because at least it was Louis now – all encompassing, bubbly, overly sarcastic Louis. The Louis he loved. The Louis he left.

They broke apart, and Louis let out a little whimper.

“You fucker, Harry Styles,” he muttered, but he was laughing breathlessly now. Harry grinned back at him, dimples popping in his cheeks. “Who’ve you been practicing on to get that good?”

“No one,” Harry mumbled back, and he was telling the truth. “I’ve been celibate the last four years practically, part from a few one nighters, but they don’t really count, do they?”

Louis shrugged. “Probably do,” he admitted. “More than I’ve done at least. All I’ve had is my hand and persistence... But here, I thought you were all ‘shit shit shit feelings feelings run run run’?”

“That was _four years ago,”_ Harry rolled his eyes, and Louis socked him on the arm. It felt like home. “I got over it. Truth was, I just loved you too much for a twenty one year old to handle.”

“I hear a certain twenty five year old is making well for himself now,” Louis said, and his fingers were lingering on Harry’s arm, rubbing gently over the place where he had hit him. He was always protecting Harry, and only then was the younger boy noticing. “So if you hoping to secure me, I’m expecting gifts of diamonds and Ferraris.”

Harry laughed, loud and wide and grinning, and it was the most uplifting feeling, having that fat one legged stiletto wearing woman off his chest for the first time in ten odd years. “Wasn’t aware you were open to be secured,” he muttered lowly. “But if you are...”

“And I am.”

“I might even go the full distance and buy you a golden ring.”

A quick red blush covered Louis’ cheeks, and he looked exactly at twenty seven as he had at seventeen. (Harry wanted him until he was seventy and over.)

“We’ve only just –”

“We’ve only just known each other our entire lives,” Harry cut in, wrapping his arms around Louis’ waist, pressing him more tightly into his torso. “And I’ve wasted the past four years anyways that we could’ve been dating, and these are the best times of our lives, Louis. I want some children before I’m thirty, thank you very much.”

The way he was smiling, you’d think Harry had lassoed a star and set it right in Louis’ waiting hands.

“Well then,” Louis whispered, close enough to Harry’s face that he could taste the significance of the words on his lips, “I suppose I would marry you Styles. If you’re asking.”

“Oh,” Harry grinned. “I’m asking.”

*

_What one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever –_ **Mary Jo Putney**

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! Please remember to leave comments or kudos xx


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